Ursus Ex Machina
by Manchester
Summary: Long before Grumpy Cat, there was another cantankerous beast in a science fiction novel series.


If it'd happened just a couple minutes later, no doubt there would've then been occurring a great deal of dramatic conflict between a certain Hellgoddess, her underlings, the Slayer, and the rest of the Scooby Gang: battling to each other's death, continuous expressed criticism of some skank's dress sense, and a lot more youthful snarkiness before Dawn's last-second rescue from being sacrificed atop a crude metal tower built earlier by Glory's minions.

However, all that entertaining affray was pre-empted tonight by a massive pit abruptly appearing directly underneath the tower, causing this edifice to plummet entirely out of sight into the ground accompanied by a massive dust cloud arising from the pit's depths which momentarily blocked everyone's view of Glory holding Dawn captive at the crumbling lip of the newly-made hole.

The dust soon settled, revealing Glory glaring at the Scoobies in their small group before this blonde deity. She next screamed at them in her maximum temper tantrum mode, "WHO DID THAT?!"

Obviously blaming her enemies there for somehow removing the sacrificial tower from right under her nose despite the sheer impossibility of this, Glory continued to scowl nastily at those stupid bugs, particularly the biggest pest of them all and her lookalike. Didn't they know they'd already lost? So what if what's-his-name, that demon with the long tongue, had also gone down with the tower where it'd been waiting for tonight's sacrifice? All she had to do was to tear apart the Key with her bare hands, and the copious blood released by this atrocity would easily open the dimensional portal to return Glory to her original dimension.

Spike saw his chance. He was at the far right end of the semicircle of foes presently in front of Glory, meaning she didn't seem to be paying him any attention. Rather, that slag in her red dress was concentrating on the Slayer and the Buffybot standing by each other at the center of the Sunnydale kiddies. Dashing forwards, Spike ran with every bit of his vampiric speed along the lip of the crater, coming up on Glory's left side opposite where this bitch was clutching the Niblet by her neck.

Knowing from previous encounters with Glory that he couldn't go head-to-head with the Hellgoddess, Spike instead planned to crash full-tilt into her, sending Glory flying or at the very least staggered by the collision. In either case, she'd hopefully let go of Dawn, allowing Spike to grab the younger Summers sister and carry her off to safety.

Alas, that hope was not to be. Without even looking over, Glory lashed out with her left arm in a blur of inhuman velocity when Spike got within reach. Unable to dodge quickly enough, Spike took Glory's fist propelled with all her infuriated strength straight into his forehead. Spike's skull shattered completely under the impact, with both this and the rest of the vampire's body puffing into ashes as a consequence.

"NO!" shrieked Buffy, with this sudden dismay also shared by her friends.

Before the Scoobies could react further, they next heard another scream. This time, however, it came from the two females at the crater's lip where Glory and Dawn both yelled in surprise when the ground they were standing upon unexpectedly dropped away.

Plunging just like the sacrificial tower into the unplumbed depths below, the Hellgoddess and her prisoner vanished in an eyeblink. Even though she knew it was useless, Buffy sprinted forward, up to the new edge of the crater in a vain attempt to see where Dawn had gone—

"Yaaaaahhhh!" Dawn bellowed again as she came shooting upwards from out of the crater, arms and legs flailing, to then hang for a fraction of a second in the air at the apex of her flight. Quite _alone._

Buffy didn't even blink. The Slayer reached ahead from where the toes of her boots were resting upon nothing solid, to scoop with a horizontal sweep of a curved right arm around Dawn's waist that captured her sister in mid-air. In the very same action. Buffy allowed herself to fall backwards, bringing Dawn along to land heavily onto the older sibling's body.

Wanting nothing more than to get additionally away from the pit's edge lest there be another ground collapse there, Buffy rolled over a few times, grimly clutching Dawn all the while as they moved from the crater.

This was done in accompaniment to various "Ooof!" "Ugggg!" "Watch it!" and other amusing sound effects from one or the other Summers females as their hard knees and elbows rammed into the erstwhile individual's stomach or more painful bodily areas.

Fortunately, Buffy took pains (in all senses of that phrase) to keep the Troll hammer she'd been carrying from accidentally clobbering Dawn during their tumble together. When they finally came to a rest, the two aching sisters nose-to-nose with each other glowered at someone whose fault this absolutely had to be, only to be speedily diverted from loud declarations of blame by yet another noisy uproar nearby.

Howling with infuriated grief at the loss of their fervently-worshipped deity, Glory's minions charged the Scooby Gang with obvious murder on their minds…only to have yet more craters open just as quickly under all of those diseased underlings which they promptly fell into with despairing wails. As they gawked at this strange sight, Buffy, Dawn, and the remaining heroes saw that besides themselves, the only remaining participants tonight at one of Sunnydale's wackier supernatural battles were the mob of humans previously brain-sucked by Glory who'd helped built the sacrificial tower.

As luck would have it, these insane people just peacefully stood there, lost in their mental dazes since they hadn't been ordered by Glory or her minions to attack anybody. Ignoring them for now, Buffy and Dawn helped each other up and the sisters then went over to where their own bewildered friends were waiting: Giles, Xander, Willow, Tara, Anya, and the Buffybot.

Buffy was the first to speak, asking with equal bafflement in her voice that the nonplussed gang were also manifesting, "Anybody have any reasonable idea what just happened? I mean, it looks like we won without doing anything!"

Mutual negative headshakes and shrugs were done by most of the others, save for the Buffybot who just perkily smiled at everybody. Shooting that robot double a dirty look, Buffy appealed further to someone who might have a clue, "Wils? Did you cast a spell that got rid of Glory and her idiots by sending them on a one-way ticket to hell?"

"No!" huffed Willow without even glancing at Buffy. Instead, the redhead witch's attention was preoccupied by giving Tara a caring hug despite the other young woman hunching over and mumbling to herself, rocking back and forth.

Continuing to embrace Tara clearly suffering from Glory's previous attack on her mind which Willow had hoped to cure tonight, she snapped to a waiting Buffy, "I'm telling you, I never had a chance! It all happened so fast!"

"But…if Wils didn't, then who did?" wondered Xander, his arm over Anya's shoulders while the former vengeance demon worriedly snuggled up against him. He looked down at his fiancé. "I don't suppose…"

Anya firmly shook her head. "Nope, not me! Don't think it was done by anyone I…um…used to know, either. It doesn't feel like it, let me put it that way."

All of them there noted how Anya was carefully avoiding saying such things as the 'w-word' or 'D-Hoffryn'. That managed to alleviate their concerns a little, but the Scoobies next eyed the oldest man there in expectation of his turn to speak.

Pulling off his glasses, Rupert Giles began to open his mouth, only to be interrupted by what sounded like exactly the loudest snort they'd ever heard in their lives. Heads turning as one towards that startling noise, the protectors of Sunnydale saw it'd come from nowhere else but the crater.

A mere second later, two massive seven-digit paws with short, thick claws at the ends reached up from out of the crater to slam down upon the pit's edge. Pressing upon the ground there for leverage, an even more enormous creature boosted itself into view and then reared upwards on its hind legs. This immensely-muscled being resembled a gigantic bear almost fifteen feet tall possessing dense brown fur with black and white splotches. The head had a flat muzzle and a tiny nose, with equally small rounded ears on top of the skull. Large eyes unwaveringly gazed at the astonished humans.

"Wonderful," Buffy gritted, pushing Dawn behind herself. "We get rid of one demon, then we get another right away!"

The Slayer hefted her Troll hammer, getting ready for smacking down Big Teddy.

"Ah, Buffy," cautioned Giles even while aiming his own crossbow at their newest potential adversary, "I don't recognize the species, which means it might not actually be aggressive. Perhaps the wisest course of action now would be to simply back away and let it go, especially since fighting it might put the non-combatants with us in danger?"

"I vote for that!" yelped Anya who'd just scooted on quick feet to hide behind Xander.

Buffy glared at Big Teddy, who continued to calmly watch the Slayer—

No, wait a second. Mr. Bear was looking past Buffy, who turned her head to follow the animal's stare at…Tara?

Directly after that, Tara shuddered, with her formerly blank expression coming back to confused life as she groaned and held her head as Willow recoiled in utter shock at her girlfriend's apparent return to sanity. Tara then blinked at where everybody but the Buffybot was regarding her with genuine awe.

"Guys? What happened? Where's the woman who grabbed my head?"

Buffy and a few of the others looked back from where an overjoyed Willow had just clamped Tara into an intense embrace and was explaining things to her in a familiar babble. They then saw the bear stare over the Scoobies towards the other group of humans also affected by Glory's earlier brain-sucking. Sure enough, within a few more seconds, every one of what Buffy and the others had dubbed the 'Crazies' also clutched their heads and peer around in perplexed but rational incomprehension about where they'd just found themselves, out in the middle of the night at somewhere unfamiliar.

Turning their attention back to the bear-demon, the Scoobies watched it glance over a furry shoulder towards the crater and stay in that position, as if it was waiting for something. Indeed, within several moments, an irritated male voice drifted from out of the crater's depths.

"All right, all right, I'm coming! What's so interesting this time, Fluff?"

* _Fluff?_ * the organic humans who'd just heard that bizarre name mentally repeated this inside their heads with absolute incredulity. Continuing their bogglement was what occurred next when someone else came out of the crater.

Steadily advancing upwards as if walking up a flight of steps along the crater's inner side, a young man between Xander's and Giles' ages with olive skin and hair a darker red than Willow's stepped onto the ground and halted there, looking quite surprised at what was awaiting him. This man's astonished expression promptly altered in a pained grimace as he rubbed his forehead as if trying to brush away a sudden headache.

On the stranger's other shoulder, a large snake coiled around his neck rose up on fluttering wings to rub its head against the man's temple. A sigh of relief came from him, along with a mutter of, "Thanks, Pip."

"Ack!"

Everyone there around Xander turned to eye this Sunnydale native due to his amazed yelp coming from out of nowhere. They all saw him gape at the strange man who suddenly looked wary only to stand there in evident shock at Xander's next questions:

"Uh, mister, are you Flinx from the Commonwealth? That's Pip, your Alaspinian minidragon, right?" Ignoring how the others were in turn gaping at him, Xander then stared up at the bear. "What's the name from the book…Ulru-Ujurrians?"

Making things even more weird, the bear nodded once in clear understanding and answer.

"HEY!" Buffy shouted, determined to get to the bottom of this. "What the hell are you talking about?!"

Xander sent them all a weak smile, obviously collecting his thoughts. "Me and Jesse, growing up here, one of our favorite science fiction writers was Alan Dean Foster. We read and collected all his paperback books, including the Flinx series."

The stranger who'd apparently been identified as Flinx demanded with absolute disbelief in his tone, "Are you saying people here are writing stories about me?"

"Uh, yeah, dude. You, Pip, Bran, Skua September, Truzenzuzex, the Tar-Aiym Krang you operated—"

Frantically waving a hand for silence, Flinx winced again at the sudden stab of agony in his head. That made him hiss much more sharply than he'd intended at the boy, "Will you be quiet about that? Nobody in the Commonwealth's supposed to know I can make it work!"

Xander just shrugged a bit bashfully. "Hey, if it helps any, you're just a fictional character here, dude."

"It doesn't," Flinx grumbled through the increasing torment inside his mind. This was abruptly lessened by a gigantic paw lightly resting atop Flinx's skull.

Gasping with relief, Flinx looked up at the Ulru-Ujurrian. "Thank you, Fluff."

The bear did a massive shrug, while Flinx suddenly frowned. He looked at the small group of people watching both him and his ursine friend with obvious wonder.

"Fluff says you can't hear him, though he was able to fix the broken minds here."

"Thank you so much!" was called out in genuine gratitude from a young woman with lighter red hair than Flinx, all while sharing a close hug with another girl the same age.

The bear waved a cheerful paw at these human females as this beast continued to carefully keep the other paw onto Flinx's head.

Flinx nodded, making sure he stayed in contact during this, "Fluff says you're welcome, but we have to leave now. Whatever's affecting us — me, Fluff, and Pip — it's getting stronger the longer we stay here."

Giles contributed his own pensive, "Could you perhaps be sensing the Hellmouth? It's a dimensional nexus close by where reality has a tendency to weaken."

Giving Pip an absent pat, Flinx allowed, "Possibly, but what does this matter? We can't tolerate it for long, so I don't think you'll ever see us again."

Pausing as a sudden thought struck him, Flinx sent a hopeful expression towards Xander. "How do the stories about us end?"

"Sorry, dude," Xander apologetically answered, "the last one in 1995 had you on Midworld, and Foster hasn't written any more since then. You're really popular, though, so I don't think he'll kill you off."

"Hold it!" Buffy interrupted, glowering at them all, even Big Fluffy Teddy. "Can we get back to the important stuff? What happened to Glory?"

Flinx said blankly, "Who?"

"Glory! Hellgoddess, evil, powerful, no way prettier than me even if Dawn thinks so!"

They all looked at Dawn, who just stared up innocently at the night sky.

Clearing his throat, Flinx said slowly, "I think there's somebody we can ask…"

Bringing up a hand to touch Fluff's paw, Flinx turned to shout at the crater: "MAYBESO!"

"What?" a dour growl came from another bear's head abruptly poking over the crater's edge.

Flinching back from that unexpected appearance, the Scooby Gang stared at the second ursine crossly examining them all from where he'd actually spoken in understandable English.

Flinx, however, seemed to take both this and the bear himself for granted. "Are you responsible for everything here lately?"

"Yes," Maybeso grunted. "Bad taste in head, got rid of it."

He sent a cranky glare at the Scoobies. "Want her back?"

"NO!" was immediately chorused by those Boca del Infierno residents.

"Good."

After that dismissive snort, Maybeso's head dropped out of sight, presumably returning to the Commonwealth dimension. As ever, he wasn't a talker.

Taking this as a sign for their own departure, Fluff and Flinx walked toward the crater. At the edge, Fluff exuberantly leapt in, taking no apparent heed of the bottomless pit as seen by his boisterous goodbye wave in mid-air before he vanished.

Flinx followed after, albeit with more dignity and a calmer farewell wave as he stepped down the inner side of the crater. Even Pip spread her wings in a parting flutter.

In turn, the Scoobies waved their own goodbyes, edging slightly away from where the Buffybot getting into the spirit of things was energetically flailing her arm up-and-down as if attempting a levitation takeoff. They watched Flinx and his companion disappear. Not more than a couple of seconds later, a mound of soil erupted inside the crater to completely fill it in, just as this also occurred at the other pits where Glory's minions had recently fallen into.

Contemplating tonight's events which'd become weirder than usual even for Sunnydale, the gang were startled by a cautious, "Excuse me?" from behind themselves. They all turned to see the former mental patients clustered in a group with some guy at the forefront who'd presumably called out.

Looking quite bewildered, that guy inquired, "Can you tell us what's going on? Nobody remembers anything…and, uh…was that a talking bear?"

The Scoobies all nonchalantly sidled away from Rupert Giles (with the Buffybot dragged along by Dawn), clearly volunteering him as the person in charge of one more Hellmouth loose end. Glaring at those faithless plonkers, Giles sighed under his breath.

Fixing an authoritative smile on his lips, the Englishman next declared to the anxious witnesses, "Of course not! You're obviously still under the influence of the latest bout of hallucinatory vapors that have been randomly appearing throughout Sunnydale! Why don't we adjourn at once to the nearest hospital for you to be looked over by the doctors there? Ah, my personal advice is to just forget everything tonight and be glad you've got your health."

Shooing the strangers into motion, Giles made an impatient 'shall-we-go?' gesture for his own companions. Smirking, Buffy, Dawn (plus an obedient Buffybot), Xander, Anya, Willow, and Tara followed after, leaving behind a patch of lumpy ground with no trace of where a sacrificial tower had earlier stood. A few steps onwards, Xander made a quick, chagrined snap of his fingers.

"What?" Willow was the first to ask him.

"Eh, might be nothing," Xander shrugged. "I'm still sorry we forgot to find out where Maybeso put Glory and her little toadies."

The strolling group thought about this in silence for a minute or so, until Buffy pointed out, "You know more about those books than anyone else here. Are there any nasty places in them where that skank can get what's coming to her for once and all?"

Xander grinned, "Oh, lots. You're right, who cares now, anyway?"

* * *

Arising in her divinely pure wrath, Glorificus, The Beast, The Abomination, That Which Cannot Be Named, stood atop the small, water-smoothed slab of rock, surrounded by her acolytes.

Squinting around at the new location where she'd just appeared without a second's warning, Glory's face contorted in fury just before screaming at the nearest minion, "YOU! WHERE'S MY KEY?"

Instead of the proper immediate groveling answer she expected, Glory saw the diseased minion stare open-mouthed at something behind her. About to tear that idiot's head off with a casual slap, Glory paused at the increasing noise from back there, a thunderous roar from some unknown bellicose creature that sounded like it was getting closer by the moment.

Allowing herself a wicked smile at finally being able to express her frustrations upon something which could take lots of punishment before expiring, Glory whirled around…to face the ultimate monster.

Stretching from either side across the entire horizon and extending far above to render Glory and the minions into no bigger in size than some lowly insects compared to their doom, the monster had at its very top one of those human monkeys looking down at them—

Joao Acorizal never spoke of what he'd seen, though after he checked the tapes later on it was understandable why nobody else had ever noticed. The skimmer tapes had always concentrated on the lone surfer riding the Monster of Dis for a prize-winning eight hours-plus. This ocean wave over thirty meters high created by the moons called Cerebus, Charon, and Pluto when they'd moved into the proper position to influence the waters of Dis had carried Acorizal along in its unstoppable path down the coastline.

Eventually, sheer exhaustion had caused Joao to experience hallucinations, but he was still convinced he'd really witnessed then a blonde woman in a red dress stranded with several other people on a rock islet far out in the ocean be washed away to their deaths by the Monster indifferently passing over them all.

Even if no record whatsoever of any loss of innocent life existed, Joao Acorizal remained sure that on a planet and its satellites all named after various places and denizens of the spiritual realm of evil and suffering, Hell had indeed taken its own.

* * *

Disclaimer: All Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters and Alan Dean Foster characters, particularly from the novel _Flinx in Flux_ and short story _Surfeit_ are the property of their rightful owners.


End file.
